American Heresy #1: Not the Greatest Nation on Earth

 

Part 1: Goliath Rises

There are certain formulas in American politics, certain magic rituals one is expected to repeat in comforting cadence. One of those is that "America" is supposed to be followed by "the greatest nation on earth". I think a case can be made for the truth of this in the latter half of the 20th century but does that stand up today?

In the aftermath of WWII, even if you questioned the moral supremacy of the United States, we were preeminent by default. All the other great powers were on their knees, crippled by 6 years of ruinous war. We did not have battles on our land with bombed, burnt-out cities. We had the A-bomb! And we had, in the few decades after the war, a truly vibrant and advancing middle class. We were indeed the wonder of the world and could be proud of how much was accomplished by shared sacrifice. 

The wave of returning service men & women found ready employment in a post-war economy that promised a decent job if you were willing to work. Unions were strong, as everyone realized that in a mature, functioning society we are all in it together. Companies and employers had a countervailing power that kept them honest in dealing with the blue collar workers. Jobs were seen as long-term commitments with each party assuming its share of responsibility for the success of the entire enterprise. 

This prosperity allowed for the single-working parent family to have a car and a house and a degree of financial security. A growing economy coupled with civic-mindedness led to investment in schools, parks, airports, the interstate highway system, exploration of the moon. We were a confident, outgoing can-do nation.

Movements of Social Change

Rising prosperity allowed people to begin questioning old established orders of power and privilege. Racial integration began in the services and became an accepted idea after the war, ultimately leading to the Civil Rights movement. Today we are celebrating Dr. King both because of his moral courage but also because he was alive at a moment in time that was ready for him.

A parallel but linked phenomenon was the rise of the Counter-Culture spawned in many ways by the Vietnam war. That war marked a turn from the moral clarity of  WWII and even the murkier Korean War. It was no longer so clear that we were on the "right side" and that what we were doing was even in the national interest. The images and stories of slaughtered innocents and shattered soldiers sent shock waves through the conforming, complacent culture of the 1950s. Similar to the racial justice movement, masses of people began to demand cultural justice, ecological justice, economic justice.

The social movements discussed above were primarily from the political Left. The mid-late 1960s were also a period of increasing fervency and activism on the Right. The 1964 Presidential campaign by Barry Goldwater gave the first hint of the coming conservative resurgence of 1980's "Reagan Revolution". The early conservative movement was a small-c conservatism. Individual, grass-roots, small-town, primarily about economics and communism. 


Corporate Hijack

By the time we get to the Reagan and Bush years, the social movement has been bought out and leashed by corporate power and the rise of the serious money. Especially by the start of the Bush II era the post-war attitude of "we're all in this together"  was considered foolish and naive. Now it's every-man-for-himself. Per Michael Douglas in the movie "Wallstreet",  "Greed is good!". Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.

In a bid for a "Permanent Republican Majority", the Gingrich-era Republican party began to seriously integrate the Religious Right as an efficient way to organize and produce voters preached to the approved social and political opinions. 

The price of keeping these devoted voters was to have the Party adopt divisive wedge issues such as abortion and gay marriage. The powers-that-be never really believed these sob stories of chopped babies and men marrying cats, but it sure ginned up the rubes. Plus it provides a most excellent distraction from the real mission of the new corporate order, which is transferring as much of the world's wealth into as few pockets as possible. I will argue that this is one of the key factors driving much of the current social and political instability.

A thread that runs through all of the Right's basic arguments is reaction.  Reaction to the Liberal New-Deal society, reaction to civil rights, reaction to the counter-culture, reaction to change. At our current political low-point, the government set to assume power is also reacting against facts, against science, against common sense, perhaps even against survival. In Part II of this essay I will examine the processes that have brought us to this sorry state.